Ireland Tour of USA & Canada

First topic message reminder :

Ok so we're headed over for a two test tour of Canada and USA. Personally I think that there is little to be gained from such a tour. A once off match with USA and another with the Canadians but ce la vie.

The point is who do we want to see out there. We will have some guys on Lions Tour - I suspect Healy, Best, O'Connell, O'Brien, Sexton, O'Driscoll, Bowe and Kearney.

Other guys - like Mike Ross - I wouldn't bother bringing on tour. The man is currently invaluable as we have no depth. Giving him the Summer off rugby increases his longevity and also allows us to find new options.

Our objectives simply should be:

- To win both games
- To find new options in centre
- To find new options at tighthead
- To find new options at fullback
- To play for the full 80 minutes (like against Fiji)

I would be looking at the following team:

01 David Kilcoyne
02 Sean Cronin
03 Stephen Archer

Kilcoyne and Archer were our backups in the 6 Nations and I think its logical we give them a go. Sherry would be a good choice in that it makes an all Munster front row but I think its important to get our props used to scrummaging with a different hooker.

04 Donnacha Ryan
05 Mike McCarthy

Assuming that Paul O'Connell makes the Lions, why not keep our lock pairing from the 6 Nations. We need to make changes in other positions so some continuity is important.

06 Iain Henderson
07 Tommy O'Donnell
08 Jamie Heaslip (c)

Not a popular captain this is a good tour for Heaslip to become the leader he needs to be. The "grown ups" of the team are gone or rested, this is the chance he gets to prove his merits. I think O'Donnell is a better #7 than Peter O'Mahony who I think would make a good bench player. We need to learn how to use a bench and O'Mahonys aggression will raise the intensity whenever he is introduced.

09 Kieran Marmion
10 Ian Madigan

The all Ulster pairing of Marshall and Jackson is probably the more likely given they were ahead in the 6 Nations and already know each others game (especially with Marshall playing at 12). However I think Madigan needs to go into the Summer as the leading flyhalf and Marshall to me is the ideal #21. Its why he looks so good for Ulster, he comes in and changes the pace of the game attacking the fringes of the breakdown like Care does for England. Marmion has been a stand out player for Connacht starting every game and deserves to start. Let Murray have a break along with Reddan and Boss - we know what these guys can do.

12 Luke Marshall
13 Darren Cave

It makes sense. We always knew it really. He hasn't got bags of pace and he ain't the next O'Driscoll but he is an outside centre (a very difficult position to develop). There aren't many out and out #13s in world rugby, why ignore the only proper one we have outside of BOD. He's done the business for Ulster and sandwiched between Marshall and Gilroy he should be in his comfort zone delivering what we saw them do against Fiji. Marshall has been a good introduction during the 6 Nations and should continue in the role.

11 Simon Zebo
14 Craig Gilroy
15 Robbie Henshaw

Regardless of whether Kearney makes the Lions Tour I think its important to see Henshaw start at 15. We badly need options at fullback, we've seen Zebo at 15 but realistically Henshaw should play there. Zebo and Gilroy have I think always looked great for Ireland and should add competition when Bowe returns.

asoreleftshoulder wrote:

Standulstermen wrote:

LeinsterFan4life wrote:

Standulstermen wrote:Serious damage was done to Strauss, toner, Ross and boss although the latter doesn't have many pretensions on a starting jersey anyway.

I thought Henry was solid. Won't ever be first choice IMO but he turned over plenty of ball (in fact all the back row did). Olding was excellent I thought. Looked dangerous on the rare occasions when he got the ball and was superb defensively.

Madigan was a bit of a curates egg for me. Kicked well but Jackson was savaged in the press for better. Just illustrates hat both these young lads will need time to acclimatise to test rugby.

What damage has been done to Ross??? He completely bossed the scrum which is what he's there for...

And outside of that he was dreadful, coughing up possession on numerous occasions. No passengers at international level. We need to unearth a new TH and fast

We've been saying that for 15 years,there are some kids coming through that might make it but it won't happen for another few years.Until then we're stuck with Ross,Hagan,Deccie Fitz,Bent and possibly Archer if he continues improving.It's not a group overflowing with talent.

We need to reevaluate our approach then because we had complete dominance in that facet yesterday and only ran out 3 point winners. The scrum is so subjective that is it even worth playing Ross when he is that poor elsewhere. There answer is no based on yesterday but I'm not naive enough to think that's indicative of him all the time. He deserves to be dropped though.

Our lineout is a massive worry and it isn't just the hookers. Our ability to call and organise a lineout is lacking outside of the great man O'Connell. I don't think we can really blame the backrow as the US were illegal at every breakdown to the point where the ref didn't seem to know where to look. They could and should have had multiple yellows. Looking at the U20s and seeing how well drilled our forwards are there I think a wee call to Ruddock to be Joes forwards coach is required

Stand, Diack should have been in there for his lineout work. We also have Tuohy- those two guys have been calling a good lineout for Ulster for most of the season.

Obviously Diack isn't in the frame for next week but Dan Tuohy should be picked and allowed to call them.

Wouldn't disagree notch. Tuohy needs a chance and if he can in any way call a lineout he jumps ahead of McCarthy and Toner for me. Diack would have helped and I'm sure we will see sherry and McLaughlin in the next game

Haven't managed to see all the match, but jesus we were dire, we seem to almost be caught in between different styles of play, probably leaning more towards the Kidney era stuff. Not many guys stood out in all honesty, Canada may be a softer touch but we need to get our heads screwed on and try and put a decent performance in as we look on towards the AIs.

Thought the bright sparks were Olding and POM. Olding was ferocious in defense - that amount of rucks he hits, and the quality of his breakdown work, as an inside centre, is massively impressive. A couple of nice wee touches in attack as well.

Henry and Boss were solid, McFadden quite good.

Disappointed in Cave - anonymous. Zebo was utterly uninvolved. Toner and Henshaw were dreadful - Henshaw seemed to be overwhelmed by it all; I'd be confident he'll perform as the nerves lessen. Strauss was appalling at the lineout - giving away free kick for delaying the throw.

I thought Madigan’s kicking was good, but the rest of his game was pedestrian.

Henderson did a couple of great things, mostly in defense, but I wish he'd pull the finger out and hit a few more rucks. He should be causing chaos at the breakdown. I suspect he's knackered - this time last season he was playing in the JWC, had no pre-season, straight into Ulster and then Ireland colours. And he has just turned 21.

As for the ref.. bewildered. Those scrums… How Henshaw escaped with a yellow card I will never know…. And can he actually go to the TMO about a tackle? I thought they could only rule on in-goal stuff? The only guys with a worse understanding of the rules were the USA team, which is why we won.

Seemed like some atmosphere, though. Superb. Would love to have been at that. Apart from the actual rugby, of course.

I thought cave was quiet but in fairness he was our top tackler and one of only 4 players to offload I believe. Still not enough to threaten the first XV.

olding was next in the tackle count and only missed one. Looked like he culd make the break when he got the ball but this rarely happened in truth.

I thought the backrow weren't too bad (certainly defensively) given the calibre of our front five which was dire. The truth is that the US gained dividends from having big men running onto the ball at pace. Not once did I see this from the likes of Henderson or kilcoyne. I'm not criticising those two but merely saying this has been an issue for a long time.

Canada will be sniffing blood, they are easily better than the USA and after watching that game the will definitely fancy their chances.

Pretty depressing enough performance although in fairness the USA don't seem to understand the offside line at the rucks.

Henshaw was pretty dire I thought, as was Kilcoyne and our backrow was bullied all about the place. Both looked out of their depth against fairly low quality opposition.

Cave, Zebo and McFadden weren't much better and Madigan didn't do much of note either. Olding looked sharp but is too small at 12 I think.

The Lineout was a disaster which dispels any myths that Rory Best is the weak link there.

I think Irish rugby is in a pretty dire state to be honest. Apart from O'Brien and Sexton all our standout performers so far on the Lions tour are getting on - O'Connell, BOD. Even Bowe is 29.

Compared to the other nations we don't seem to have any top quality talent coming through at all. Every game we look physically inferior to the opposition.

Joe Schmidt really has a tough task ahead.

Wow, rodders. Glum much?

Standulstermen wrote:I thought cave was quiet but in fairness he was our top tackler and one of only 4 players to offload I believe. Still not enough to threaten the first XV.

olding was next in the tackle count and only missed one. Looked like he culd make the break when he got the ball but this rarely happened in truth.

I thought the backrow weren't too bad (certainly defensively) given the calibre of our front five which was dire. The truth is that the US gained dividends from having big men running onto the ball at pace. Not once did I see this from the likes of Henderson or kilcoyne. I'm not criticising those two but merely saying this has been an issue for a long time.

I thought so too re: Cave but the stats say he made a mountain of tackles and also carried for a lot of metres. One thing I noticed looking at the stats was that Olding and Cave made a serious amount of tackles between them. Not sure how positive the tackles were but they still made them, Cave missed 2 I think Olding didn't miss any. They both have good tackling styles too, chop down around the ankles/knees and Cave is pretty versatile in tackling technique too.

Strauss needs to be dropped for this game otherwise I may keep the team the same perhaps with Marmion getting a go. I'd put Trimble on the wing for Zebo too. Maybe get Hagan in instead of Ross. Maybe get Tuohy in instead of Toner.

Personally I think Madigan is better than Jackson and so would start Madigan again and tell his forwards to get him some go-forward, as with that quality ball and the American's being insanely aggressive and pro-active in defense it made it very hard to create anything, with that in mind I think he did well. Needs to cut some length off the up and unders however.

rodders wrote:

Compared to the other nations we don't seem to have any top quality talent coming through at all. Every game we look physically inferior to the opposition.

Joe Schmidt really has a tough task ahead.

Let's wait for the conclusion of the JWC before we hoist the white flag on the future, Rodders. We're in the (cue the omenous music please) Group'a'death!!!!! in that competition and not only have we been doing ok so far but we've been playing a lovely perpetual motion game with nice continuity between heavy forward grunt and slippery backs stuff. I'm not going to say any more to jinx them for their future game against some eejits from a place called New Zealand

Coaching really, really does matter.

Fly I don't think the JWC is a good indicator of talent.

I think it possibly is. Progress at the bottom suggests where progress might go to. Not succeeding at JWC level means you're probably not going to have as much ammo as you'd like in the short to medium term future at senior level.
In 2008 the JWC Welsh U20 side had Warburton, Halfpenny, Johnathan Davis, Tipuric and Biggar... I wonder where those guys have got to?

We had a young fella called Ruddock as well, feck knows where he's got to?

RubyGuby wrote:We had a young fella called Ruddock as well, feck knows where he's got to?

Exactly!

And we turned the baby Blacks over in the last JRWC - Fly is right it is the ultimate breeding ground although there are others (particularly) front row players who develop later. Our next monster back is a lad called Corey Allen - he's a cross between North and Roberts.

Ireland never have been a physically big rugby team and probably never will be. We're not big people anyway and the majority of our physical players don't tend to play rugby most will play GAA.


Either way, we put way too much emphasis on bulk and size in Irish rugby, we beat a physically superior OZ side, why first because we did things fas,t speed is the most underrated commodity in rugby, you don't have to be as strong if you can be fast. If you have less mass but more speed, you are still a strong force when you hit. Australia are the team who we should aim to be like, they do not rely on a massive pack, but rely on quickness and agility, Ireland can be like that, if the Lions beat Australia it won't be because we blugeoned them to death, it will be mainly thanks to getting to the breakdown quick, securing good ball and letting the bakcs do their things. The main reason I was concerned with the Lions performance on Saturday was that we did everything slow, no urgency that won't work with Oz. If we play the Wales style we wont win

rodders wrote:

RubyGuby wrote:We had a young fella called Ruddock as well, feck knows where he's got to?

Exactly!

Ruddock's under twenty team were pretty poor at the JWC though. Take a look at the game Ireland played against Australia last Wednesday. Despite the difference in size, Ireland totally dismantled the aussie scrum. Ireland's lineout was amazingly accurate for an under twenty team. If it wasn't for a few handling errors Ireland would have put a cricket score on them.

Maybe we're rubbish in Ireland at turning U20 talent into senior success.

This is the side who made the U20 RWC Final in 2004. This team was the second best underage side in world rugby at the time. How many truly "made it".

01 John Wickham
02 Denis Fogarty
03 Declan Fitzpatrick
04 David Gannon (c)
05 Shane O'Connor
06 Brendan O'Connor
07 David O'Brien
08 Jamie Heaslip
09 Tomas O'Leary
10 Gareth Steenson
11 Paul McKenzie
12 Glen Telford
13 John Hearty
14 Richie Lane
15 Andrew Finn

16 Conor Geoghegan
17 Keith Doyle
18 Neil McComb
19 Oisin Hennessy
20 Robbie Shaw
21 Michael Glancy
22 Breiffne O'Donnell

How many of that team have even managed to become steady provincial players never mind established internationals.

Success at that level is just one part of the Jigsaw

Did someone mention GAA players? (turn off omenous Group'a'Death music and put on Sinister/Sly/Conspiratorial music).

Where's that carrot I was saving for the end of me stick?

Henshaw showed he isn't ready for this level. He will be mercilessly bombarded by Canada and should be spared that assault or his career could suffer.

I'd be really tempted to play Madigan at 15 against Canada. Jones has been poor enough since his return from injury and with Zebo gone there aren't many options at 15 in the squad. Olding is a possibility but he had a stormer at 12 so I'd stick with him there. Madigan is likely to be in the RWC squad as cover for Sexton at 10 but he would be a lot more versatile if he had Test experience at 15, thus allowing Schmidt more selection options.

Thomond wrote:Ireland never have been a physically big rugby team and probably never will be. We're not big people anyway and the majority of our physical players don't tend to play rugby most will play GAA.


Either way, we put way too much emphasis on bulk and size in Irish rugby, we beat a physically superior OZ side, why first because we did things fas,t speed is the most underrated commodity in rugby, you don't have to be as strong if you can be fast. If you have less mass but more speed, you are still a strong force when you hit. Australia are the team who we should aim to be like, they do not rely on a massive pack, but rely on quickness and agility, Ireland can be like that, if the Lions beat Australia it won't be because we blugeoned them to death, it will be mainly thanks to getting to the breakdown quick, securing good ball and letting the bakcs do their things. The main reason I was concerned with the Lions performance on Saturday was that we did everything slow, no urgency that won't work with Oz. If we play the Wales style we wont win

Even better, if you double your mass you double the impact, double the speed and you multiply the impact by a factor of 4.

Mickado wrote:
Even better, if you double your mass you double the impact, double the speed and you multiply the impact by a factor of 4.

If you did all that you'd be George North .....

Mickado wrote:

Thomond wrote:Ireland never have been a physically big rugby team and probably never will be. We're not big people anyway and the majority of our physical players don't tend to play rugby most will play GAA.


Either way, we put way too much emphasis on bulk and size in Irish rugby, we beat a physically superior OZ side, why first because we did things fas,t speed is the most underrated commodity in rugby, you don't have to be as strong if you can be fast. If you have less mass but more speed, you are still a strong force when you hit. Australia are the team who we should aim to be like, they do not rely on a massive pack, but rely on quickness and agility, Ireland can be like that, if the Lions beat Australia it won't be because we blugeoned them to death, it will be mainly thanks to getting to the breakdown quick, securing good ball and letting the bakcs do their things. The main reason I was concerned with the Lions performance on Saturday was that we did everything slow, no urgency that won't work with Oz. If we play the Wales style we wont win

Even better, if you double your mass you double the impact, double the speed and you multiply the impact by a factor of 4.

There are not many peopel aroudn like that now Mick, msot of those types of physical specimens are not playing too much rugby, (most of those freak athletes are Americans)

Is that not the basis for our injury conveyor belt? I'll leave it to the scienticians above but it seems to me that speed contributes more to impact than bulk. Therefore a light, fast, hard hitting player such as BOD or Darcy will create more impact when tacking at full tilt than say Roberts or Davies. The downside being they have less mass to absorb the impact which leads to broken bones, twisted ligaments ond torn tendons.

I was just using doubling your size or speed as an example to be honest. Very few players are double the size of anyone in rugby.

Submachine, you're exactly right about speed having more effect than size.

Very basically, the energy of a moving object (kinetic energy) is:

(0.5)*(mass of the object)*(speed of the object)^2

(^2 means squared by the way)

So a back might be 90kg and able to run at 9.5 meters per second
A forward could be 120kg and able to run at 8.0 meters per second

The energy that the back is carrying is about 5% higher than that for the forward even though the forward is considerably heavier and not running that much slower.

Thomond wrote:Ireland never have been a physically big rugby team and probably never will be. We're not big people anyway and the majority of our physical players don't tend to play rugby most will play GAA.


Either way, we put way too much emphasis on bulk and size in Irish rugby, we beat a physically superior OZ side, why first because we did things fas,t speed is the most underrated commodity in rugby, you don't have to be as strong if you can be fast. If you have less mass but more speed, you are still a strong force when you hit. Australia are the team who we should aim to be like, they do not rely on a massive pack, but rely on quickness and agility, Ireland can be like that, if the Lions beat Australia it won't be because we blugeoned them to death, it will be mainly thanks to getting to the breakdown quick, securing good ball and letting the bakcs do their things. The main reason I was concerned with the Lions performance on Saturday was that we did everything slow, no urgency that won't work with Oz. If we play the Wales style we wont win

Thomond - no idea where you are getting that from mate. I would say we are well behind other countries, in terms of physical development, and not much focus is placed on either of those things. It shows too.

Speed is more important (for some positions) but why are you separating the two? Look at North and Tuilagi, two extremely quick and agile players yet built like rhinos. Or do you remember how fast Stephen Ferris was? Why seperate the two?

Thomond wrote:Ireland never have been a physically big rugby team and probably never will be. We're not big people anyway and the majority of our physical players don't tend to play rugby most will play GAA.


Either way, we put way too much emphasis on bulk and size in Irish rugby, we beat a physically superior OZ side, why first because we did things fas,t speed is the most underrated commodity in rugby, you don't have to be as strong if you can be fast. If you have less mass but more speed, you are still a strong force when you hit. Australia are the team who we should aim to be like, they do not rely on a massive pack, but rely on quickness and agility, Ireland can be like that, if the Lions beat Australia it won't be because we blugeoned them to death, it will be mainly thanks to getting to the breakdown quick, securing good ball and letting the bakcs do their things. The main reason I was concerned with the Lions performance on Saturday was that we did everything slow, no urgency that won't work with Oz. If we play the Wales style we wont win

+4million

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Thomond wrote:Ireland never have been a physically big rugby team and probably never will be. We're not big people anyway and the majority of our physical players don't tend to play rugby most will play GAA.


Either way, we put way too much emphasis on bulk and size in Irish rugby, we beat a physically superior OZ side, why first because we did things fas,t speed is the most underrated commodity in rugby, you don't have to be as strong if you can be fast. If you have less mass but more speed, you are still a strong force when you hit. Australia are the team who we should aim to be like, they do not rely on a massive pack, but rely on quickness and agility, Ireland can be like that, if the Lions beat Australia it won't be because we blugeoned them to death, it will be mainly thanks to getting to the breakdown quick, securing good ball and letting the bakcs do their things. The main reason I was concerned with the Lions performance on Saturday was that we did everything slow, no urgency that won't work with Oz. If we play the Wales style we wont win

Thomond - no idea where you are getting that from mate. I would say we are well behind other countries, in terms of physical development, and not much focus is placed on either of those things. It shows too.

Speed is more important (for some positions) but why are you separating the two? Look at North and Tuilagi, two extremely quick and agile players yet built like rhinos. Or do you remember how fast Stephen Ferris was? Why seperate the two?

I'm getting it from what I have seen in underagew rugby, where I have seen three kids in the last 12 months go to hospital from dumbass weight lifting injuries, and another kid do damage to his heart because he was advised by a coach (I might be wrong but I'm sure he had ties to Munster's Youth section as recently as a year ago) to take protein shakes ad nauseum. If done right, I don't have too much a problem with it, but at underage, I have seen a big Munster team, get their asses handed to them by a "smaller" Ulster team and lose to the other provinces as well, mainly because the Munster team attempted to bosh it up the middle and looked like they had no clue about backplay, they had several big forwards, muscular like but who weren't organised, and got killed at the breakdown and set piece, big doesn't always mean better.

Very true, big does not always mean better. Skills, technique and talent are all more important, and size/strength can always be developed much easier for most.

But in terms of weight lifting injuries, that has more to do with not being taught properly. As a sport, Weightlifting (in the Olympics) is one of the safest sports in the world, despite lifting 200kg plus overhead. If you are getting hurt, you aren't doing it right.

That's my main issue with it, it's safe by and large and tohse are isolated incidents but there are teams about who are spending more time in the weight room which is absolutely ridiculous.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Still am in utter shock that we created so little in the first half yet had 70% possession. It's almost incomprehensible

Typical Ireland for the last few years. Kidneys biggest mistake was making Kiss the attack coach. Last week Kiss basically told Madigan to play without any flair. Do the basics well and take no chances. Madigan played to orders. Why pick flair players and then tell them to play without flair? If you want to play it safe then James Downey was on the bench.

Thats the problem with Ireland over the last few years. In terms of picking players to suit a system they put square pegs into round holes.

As Kiss demonstrated last week he hasn't the foggiest idea of attacking rugby. Watching Ireland is like watching the barbarians. A load of players thrown together who play less than the sum of their parts. Same with Ireland. Ireland had a massive skills advantage over the USA but they never used it. Not only that they never used their ball carriers!! Henderson, Kilcoyne, Strauss etc made no ground.


As for the players, Olding got through a brusing encounter. The Americans picked as big a team as possible and went to smash Ireland but Olding did well and prevented a try too. As for being too small, well every player has weaknesses. Downeywould have been better suited against Americabut once Schmidt comes in and puts in place an attack structure to Irelands game it will bring out the best in Olding and his creativity could more than make up for his size.

POM again showed that he is a top class player. 57m from 9 carrier. The next highest in the pack was McCarthys 6m from 5 carries. The others got 2m or less except for TOD who got 10m from 3 carries.

Prof - do you think that POM is a bit small for an 8? I would love him to bulk up in pre-season because he seems perfect for the 8 position in pretty much every other regard but watching him get absolutely nailed by Mano was hard to watch!

He is a fantastic player though.

Very competitive game between Emerging Ireland and SA Presidents XV

I can't see O'Mahony getting any sort of game time at #8 for Munster or Ireland.

At Munster we have CJ Stander, James Coughlan and Paddy Butler. By contrast we have no real options at #6.

At Ireland he'll find it easier to start ahead of Ian Henderson who is barely assured of his Ulster shirt than ousting Ireland captain Jamie Heaslip.

Stander played blindside (7 shirt) at the Bulls, he is just as much an option at flanker as he is at 8.

Heaslip is 29, and until very recently out of form, Hendy is 21 and a better player than O'Mahony in my opinion.

is it half time in the Emerging Ireland vs SA Presidents game???

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:is it half time in the Emerging Ireland vs SA Presidents game???

Full time

We lost 19-8

It's over. 8 -19 to SA in what might go down as a spirited performance from the Irish. But I think it was more than that, it certainly was more of a fight than the senior game against USA. Our scrum was very dominant but we lacked a tad creativity in attack and that made defending easier for the SAs.

Ah crud, hate missing these kinda games. Anyone show up very well or poorly?

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:is it half time in the Emerging Ireland vs SA Presidents game???

The game is over. It kicked off at 2:00pm BST. Emerging Ireland were unlucky, With a few minutes to go, they were down by over a converted score and on the line. They went across the line, recycled, and touched down but the ref blew for held-up without seeing how the move developed.

I don't know the law in that instance. It would have been a score if the ref had just waited three more seconds but perhaps he has an obligation to blow up if the ruck is taking place over the tryline. If the score had stood, it would have given them a shot at pulling off a remarkable comeback in the closing moments.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Ah crud, hate missing these kinda games. Anyone show up very well or poorly?

The games are going out live on the IRB's YouTube channel. At the end of the day, they'll be up to watch again. Search for. The Day 1 video is up already:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1pAn8q8U_0

Sound lads, thanks a mil for the heads up

POM will play 6, Munster have options at 8, and SOB could slot in there for Ireland if necessary. O'Donnell got the rave reviews this year and he deserved it but without O'Mahony, O'Donnell doesn't look half as good, much like Lydiate and Warburton working together.

Do you think O'Mahony is better at 6 than O'Brien or Hendy?

To be honest I don't I have seen enough of Henderson, he isn't better then O'Brien there, his versatility makes him a good bench option though, I wouldn't say Heaslip starting is a certainty, although under Schmidt it may be.

But if Heaslip wasn't starting at 8, wouldn't O'Mahony be the obvious guy to replace him? Rather than moving someone else there and playing O'Mahony at 6.

I like O'Mahony, but I think there might be better players in each position and he doesn't want to run into the danger of swapping around too much. For me, he looks best at 8 and always has but if he isn't going to be playing there for Munster then I guess that isn't where his future lies.

SOB to me is a better 8 then POM. He won't play there for Munster, the swapping around between 6/8 isn't as bi an issue as it is for Earls so I would be okay were it to happen.

Thomond wrote:POM will play 6, Munster have options at 8, and SOB could slot in there for Ireland if necessary. O'Donnell got the rave reviews this year and he deserved it but without O'Mahony, O'Donnell doesn't look half as good, much like Lydiate and Warburton working together.

I find that backwards I gotta say.

I think POM is much more suited to 8 than SOB and possibly more suited to 8 than he is to 6 (not a 7 IMO - even though he has played there).

I'm not sure if POM will start in the Irish backrow tbh, SOB and Heaslip are nailed on IMO. To me it is going to be a tussle between Henry, POM and Henderson and hopefully Schmidt will do a horses for courses type selection regarding the opposition.